This book is in three main parts: (I)It deals first with the history of certain key ideas from the early modern period (assessing thinkers from Hobbes and Marx to Hegel, Weber and Kuhn, (II) before exploring the institutional and social features which have shaped the emergence of modern social science,(III) concluding by suggesting an alternative realist philosophy for the future.
Based originally on a flawed idea of science, the ‘social sciences’ have incorporated and refined a set of assumptions about the nature of state and society, assumptions which have been institutionalized with the growth of modern universities.
A (if not the) principle moral of Professor Manicas's historical sketch is that ‘the modern social sciences have been, unwittingly or not, defenders of the status quo; (p. 276)… Despite this history, ‘social science is potentially liberating’ (ibid.).
This means, in effect, empowering human beings to see themselves as “causal agents” and as such, beings ‘capable of re-fashioning society in the direction of greater humanity, freedom, and justice’ (p. 277).
Vincent Colapietro, Pennsylvania State University, Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy, Newsletter